COHORT PROFILE: THE MELBOURNE COLLABORATIVE COHORT STUDY

It’s not an ideally designed study, but provides some interesting insight into cancer, revealing that the three prime factors driving up cancer rates in Australia are alcohol, obesity, and smoking. This study is an ongoing research project involving 42,000 Australians who have been monitored since 1990.

Key take-aways for me that I thought you might also be interested in are ::

? There was “zero evidence” that eating fruit and vegetables could protect against cancer.

? The link between eating red meat and bowel cancer was “weak” and the Cancer Council supported guidelines advising people to eat red meat three or four times a week.

? Fibre was deemed to have no significant benefit in avoiding bowel cancer.

? Regularly drinking too much alcohol boosted the risk of several cancers including breast and bowel.

? The risk of every type of cancer is increased by obesity.

I hope this will fuel some good quality research into what these findings have uncovered, and that we will stop being misled about the real impact that food can have on our health.

The key annoyances for me were the underlying “eat less, move more” not-so-subtle flavour of the paper. People with obesity have been trying this since the government dietary guidelines first came out and the obesity epidemic has worsened under this advice.

My advice is eat good quality, unprocessed, real food. Consume adequate protein, lots of healthy fats, and drop the carbs right back. Avoid being stationary for too long, and find ways to jiggle up your circulation during the day. Get professional help with learning how to increase your physical strength and dialing in your food game, and if necessary, also in dealing with a smoking or alcohol problem.

This is the link to the paper https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/6/1757/3882696